Future-Proofing Your Town Sounds Great, Until You Try It

Everyone says Lytton was a beautiful place to live. The small Canadian town sits at the confluence of two rivers and was built on one of the oldest continuously inhabited areas in North America—the Nlaka’pamux people have called it home for more than 10,000 years. About 250 people lived in the Lytton of the recent past, on a few cross streets and several dozen lots—you could take it in all in one breath. One blistering June evening in 2021, a wildfire burned through the entire place, and the neighboring Lytton First Nation.

Patrick Michell, the former chief of a nearby Nlaka’pamux community, was at the band office when he got a succession of texts from his wife in the span of minutes: Somebody just called and said Lytton is burning. Then, Our reserve is on fire, and then: Our house is on fire. After that, the cell service cut out. In the hours that followed, roughly 1,000 people were evacuated; two people died. Ninety percent of the town of Lytton was destroyed, as were dozens of homes and community buildings across Lytton First Nation. The hundreds of residents who lost their homes scattered across British Columbia.

Less than a week after the blaze, the province’s then-premier, John Horgan, pledged his government’s support to help Lytton rebuild as a “town of tomorrow,” more resilient